Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

This Excise Tariff Validation Bill 2009 is part of a package that the government is introducing to deal with alcohol related harm. The bill collects the tax that the government has already collected. As Senator Cormann pointed out, it is the tax that was collected that they failed to get support for during the last session with their previous bill. The government is also introducing a new mechanism—which I will come back to in a minute—to continue to collect the tariff for up to another 12 months. And in June, presumably—from indications from the government—we will be debating the reintroduction of the bill, a bill validating the collection of the tax that was rejected by the Senate in the March sitting.

During the debate on the last bill, the Greens were willing to support that measure as part of a comprehensive approach to addressing alcohol related harm. We went very carefully, and have continued to go very carefully, into the evidence around alcohol related harm, and it is quite obvious from that evidence that a set of comprehensive measures to deal with alcohol related harm is needed, of which price is a key mechanism. We have always acknowledged the domestic and international research which said that the price of alcohol is a key mechanism in dealing with alcohol related harm. But you cannot use the price mechanism alone. That is also quite evident from the evidence. We therefore negotiated, in good faith with the government, additional funding for measures complementary to the price mechanism.

I will remind the chamber of what those measures were. They related to labelling—and other crossbenchers also held strong views on this, raising it with the government and negotiating with them—and mandatory warnings in all advertising on alcohol related products. A most critical measure for us was the fund that was established to deal with alcohol and the relationship of alcohol products with sponsorship, particularly for sports. The relationship between sports and sporting clubs and their reliance on alcohol related sponsorship has been identified as a key area that needs addressing. The fund that was to be established under our agreement was a voluntary fund which clubs could go to for sponsorship to replace alcohol related sponsorship. It was a key component of our package—to develop a hotline around alcohol, to continue extra funding for community based projects and for some social marketing. That package was negotiated in good faith with the government between us and Senator Xenophon. It was to get funded if the legislation got up—in other words, if the tax continued to be in place.

The tax, of course, did not get up and now we come to the issue that this tax is continuing. The bill that we are talking about is actually collecting that tax. To date, as I understand it, it has collected $424 million and, as has also been pointed out to the chamber, if that bill and the measure are not passed by tonight, the money goes back to distillers. Nobody in this chamber wants that money to go back to distillers. We have always been of the opinion that that money should be retained by the Commonwealth and spent on alcohol related harm. At the time of the debate, if people recall, we were very strongly told that it could not be done. As Senator Cormann pointed out, the opposition and crossbench supported a motion for validation of the tax and collection of that money and that it be directed to payments on alcohol related harm. We were told at the time that you could not do that. So there was no point in negotiating further with the government about expenditure of any of those funds on complementary measures because the government said they could not do it. Well, between March and now they have obviously either had new advice or have known all the time that they could keep that money.

One of the key questions here regards the next bill in this package that comes up in June. If that goes down, will the government continue to collect the tax for another 12 months?